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The Top 12 Free and Open Source HR Software Systems

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UPDATE 2/12/2016: This article has been updated to reflect six new free or open source HR systems that have been brought to light since the original post was published. Additionally, existing free HR tools in the list have been updated with new information, and two were removed because they are no longer free. There are now 16 total HR software solutions in the list instead of the original 12.

I always felt a bit bad taking one of the free samples at the supermarket.

Yes, I know that’s what they’re there for. And I know the reps passing out cups of chips, or cheese, or (at Whole Foods, at least) nice red wine are only doing it to entice me to buy something.

But still.

I felt like I was taking advantage of their generosity by eating what they gave me, but then not buying what they were selling.

In fact, it turns out this is a well-known principle of social psychology. Companies count on you feeling bad about not reciprocating the “favor” of a free sample in order to sell you more stuff.

Once I learned this, it became much easier for me to accept that free sample without the accompanying pang of guilt and burning need to somehow escape the judgmental gaze of everyone at the grocery store (I’m great fun in social situations).

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The HR software solutions below are all free, and not in the “free sample” kind of way that will make you feel guilty after a limited trial. These are all free in perpetuity (though some are subject to a few limits) and many are especially good options for smaller and startup companies.

I’ve broken up the below 12 between free/freemium (i.e. free up to a certain point) offerings, and open source systems.

Free/Freemium

This freemium product is free for up to three users, but caps off data storage for free accounts at 500MB (vs. 3-5GB for upgraded accounts) and also doesn’t offer phone support or full access to mobile apps for the free version.

The “recruitment app” in Apptivo

Pros/cons

Being organized as a suite of cloud-based “apps” rather than a single software product gives Apptivo a lot of flexibility, and allows users to mix and match for the functionality they need. With HR apps for employee info, recruitment, vacation tracking, and team communication it’s easy to build a basic HR tool for most needs.

On the other hand, Apptivo isn’t built specifically as an HR tool; it covers tons of other business disciplines like CRM, financials, project management, and marketing. That means it’s not quite as specialized for HR managers, and may be missing some functionality like training and performance appraisal.

freeHR is a web-based human resources system run by UK-based company Isys. The system is totally free, with no limits on number of users, how long, or how much you use it. Isys makes money with ads, and by charging for optional premium services like setup/configuration, training, support, and custom reports.

freeHR’s employee dashboard at work

Pros/cons

The cloud-based nature of freeHR allows it to play well across multiple devices and mobile apps, and the ability to get alerts and send responses from a phone or tablet are strong suits of this product. Employee self-service is also a focus with the ability for employees to request vacation and sick time themselves, clock in/clock out, track their own employment contracts and documents, and keep all their personal records updated.

However, freeHR does not seem to include any modules or functionality for payroll or recruiting, so keep that in mind.

A free solution for any organization with ten employees or less, HRtrack is a downloadable software product by Canadian company First Reference. The system runs on your desktop, and its appearance will make any user of Outlook feel right at home.

Absence tracking in HRtrack

Pros/cons

This software is ideal for Canadian companies, with its strong focus on and inclusion of province-specific compliance information. HRtrack also has the ability to track employee training, vacations, performance, and benefits. Calendar integration with Microsoft Outlook is another big plus.

HRtrack is an older software, however, and its installed nature means if you need something that you can access across multiple computers or via mobile, this is likely not a great fit.

A web-based, “social” HR software aimed at SMEs, WebHR is free and ad-supported for ten employees or fewer. Based in Pakistan, but with over 9,000 customers from around the globe, WebHR has been around in its current SaaS form since 2010.

WebHR’s messaging functionality

Pros/cons

A natively web-based solution, WebHR plays nice with mobile and has good reviews in the Google Apps store. Attendance tracking, recruitment, and payroll functionality round out the system’s helpful features.

Unfortunately the free version is limited and does not include discussion boards, document uploads, or custom reports.

This HR tool is free for five employee logins and ten employee profiles. A web-based software, People also integrates with many of Zoho’s other offerings (and there are many).

An employee leave request in Zoho People

Pros/cons

Zoho is a large, established company, and their HR offering reflects that with its polished look and feel, and functionality that includes time tracking, leave management, and employee information and self-service.

That said, the free version is feature-limited and doesn’t include timesheet or attendance tracking capabilities, and storage is limited to 250MB.

Free for up to 19 users, this India-based HR tool includes modules for employee management, leave and attendance, and payroll. As a cloud-based system CollaBrill also has very little setup and installation needed.

Managing employees in CollaBrill

Pros/cons

With a higher free user threshold than most other freemium products, the free version of CollaBrill will support a larger team for longer. A clean dashboard also gives a good overview of your team and HR needs.

Unfortunately, while the free version includes a payroll module, it’s only set up currently for India, so users seeking to run payroll in other countries may want to look elsewhere for now. Additionally, the free version is somewhat limited in not including CollaBrill’s recruitment, performance appraisal, and task management modules.

A couple years old now, this free tool is nevertheless stripped-down and focused on essentials. Leave management, employee self-service, and payroll processing are all included in the system. Available as a free, online solution, HR.my is run and updated by Chrysanth Software, a company based in Malaysia that is continuously adding new features and updates to the software.

Managing compensation in HR.my.

Pros/cons

Development of HR.my is continuous and responsive, and user suggestions are implemented frequently. Additionally, the tool is likely to stay free forever, as it seems to be used primarily to drive interest and traffic to some of the developer’s other, paid tools.

While it is web-based, the look-and-feel of the tool is a little dated, so if aesthetics is your thing it might not be a perfect fit. Additionally, the focus on Malaysia may limit some of the functionality, especially from a payroll perspective, for users in other countries.

Free for up to five employees, Sleekr is a good option for small or freelance startups. The free version of this cloud-based HR tool includes all the features of their paid plans, like performance management, mobile access, payroll, onboarding, and vacation and time-off tracking.

Vacation policy in Sleekr.

Pros/cons

Sleekr is, as the name suggests, sleekly designed, with a clean, modern interface and a slick mobile-responsive theme. The free version is, additionally, full-featured and can be used for an unlimited time period. That said, with a limit of five staff members on the free version, it’s likely only a fit for very small start-ups and entrepreneurs.

A terrible oversight kept Zenefits off the first version of this list, but it’s one of the most popular free HR systems out there. Zenefits’ core system is totally free, and includes benefits administration, employee self-service, onboarding and offboarding, payroll, PTO and vacation tracking, and tons more. The company makes money if you decide to manage your benefits through their software, and they get paid by the benefits companies directly. Zenefits also offers optional paid modules.

Time and attendance tracking in Zenefits.

Pros/cons

Zenefits is one of the most full-featured free HR products on the market, and with millions in venture-backing has been able to build a really cool, clean tool. Their business model also means the system is likely to remain free forever, no matter what size team you have.

That said, the company has experienced some volatility recently, with accusations of improper regulatory compliance, and the departure of their CEO. Additionally, some users say it can be challenging to perform certain tasks in the software, like creating org charts or pulling employee health data.

Open Source

A1 eHR, by Alliance Technologies, targets mid-large sized companies and organizations. Alliance makes money off the open source HR solution through charging for optional support and maintenance. Download of the source code does require you to fill out a form on their site.

Time and attendance management in A1 eHR

Pros/cons

Covering everything from organization management, to recruitment, leave tracking, training, and payroll, A1 eHR has all the functionality necessary for larger organizations.

Its complexity may be a turn off to more casual users, however, and the amount of information it captures can be overwhelming. Payroll also seems limited to only U.S. and Canadian employees.

iceHRm offers both a paid hosted version, and the ability to host your own instance by downloading the source code for free. The paid version starts at $1.49 per employee per month.

iceHRM’s dashboard

Pros/cons

With one of the more modern user interfaces among the open source contenders, iceHRM comes across as eminently easy-to-use. It covers leave management, time and attendance tracking, employee information, and document upload, as well as the ability to download reports in .CSV format. Robust issue support also helps to make this a strong open source option.

However, as it’s aimed squarely at the smaller end of the market, it may not have the depth of functionality for larger companies.

This open source tool is somewhat niche, focusing, as it does, primarily on leave and overtime management. However, it includes leave and overtime request approvals, built-in reports, org structure design, and a calendar to see who’s in and who’s on vacation.

Approving leave in Jorani.

Pros/cons

Jorani is a cleanly designed system that aims to do one thing, and one thing well. If you just need a free leave management and tracking tool, and can host it yourself, it’s a great option. But if you need other functionality, or a more full-featured and complex tool, Jorani may not be ideal for you.

This open source HR software has a paid, SaaS version, which comes with added support and hosting, as well as its free source code version that you can host yourself (the download link on the OrangeHRM website requires registration, but the source code can be downloaded on SourceForge without registering).

One of the most popular free HR software products, OrangeHRM is a modular system and also has a marketplace where tailored modules and plugins can be purchased.

OrangeHRM’s performance management module

Pros/cons

With modules for everything from leave management and recruiting, to performance management and time and attendance tracking, there’s no denying that OrangeHRM is extremely comprehensive. An easy-to-use interface, and the ease with which it can be installed over a pre-existing LAMP stack make OrangeHR a good fit for any organization willing to invest the time and resources into hosting an open source HR application.

Some users have complained of poor support from Orange if you decide to pay for that option, however.

A crowd favorite of a lot of our commenters here on this post, Sentrifugo is an open source HRMS tool with all the features of larger, paid HR software suites. Sentrifugo offers performance appraisal, employee self-service, lots of built-in reports, leave management, time tracking, and recruiting/interview functionality as well.

The dashboard in Sentrifugo.

Pros/consIf you need a solid, comprehensive HR tool, and have the tech savvy to handle an open-source installation, Sentrifugo definitely deserves a look. Many users have compared it to OrangeHRM as far as depth of functionality. That said, some users have also said Sentrifugo can be overly complex, given all the features and modules it offers.

This open source HR solution is aimed directly at SMEs, and includes a free version and a paid, “professional edition” with additional modules and functionality. Paid support is also available on a one-time or ongoing/annual basis.

Adding an employee in SimpleHRM

Pros/cons

With the ability to handle a diverse range of HR needs including leave management, travel and expense management, benefits, task reporting, and the ubiquitous employee information, SimpleHRM provides a good solid HR foundation for most small and medium businesses. A slick UI adds to the appeal of this open source program.

That said, some users have complained of difficulty installing the source code, particularly with file paths, so ensure you have someone technically proficient to handle implementation.

Another open source tool where you can choose to go it alone for free, or pay for a cloud-hosted version, Waypoint HR has been downloaded tens of thousands of times. Managed by a UK-based company, this HRM software covers all the basics.

Tracking employee information in Waypoint HR

Pros/cons

While a little less slick-looking than something like OrangeHRM or SimpleHRM, Waypoint nonetheless has a robust support community and helpful knowledgebase for programmers and users. Its simplified setup and step-by-step instructions help to lower the learning curve that most open source software suffers from. Unfortunately, it also looks like the community version of WaypointHR is no longer updated or supported, so don’t expect bug fixes or additional features for the free option.

Honorable Mention

We’ve mentioned Odoo before in our post on free and open source ERPs but it’s worth an honorable mention here as well since it has such a robust HR module (including recruiting, expense management, performance appraisal, and time and attendance tracking). It’s also totally open source, so if you want to download and run it yourself you can (or you can pay them to host it for you). That it’s more an ERP than a dedicated HR system shouldn’t stop you from taking a look, however.

More?

Are there any great free or open source HR software products that I somehow missed in this list? Do you use any more role-specific free solutions, like a time tracking tool, which you think are worth mentioning?

Any suggestions for the best grocery stores to prowl for free samples?

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About the Author

JP Medved

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J.P. currently works as a Content Editor at Capterra, a privately held technology and online media company focused on bringing together buyers and sellers of business software. He is a graduate of Georgetown University where he founded The Georgetown Federalist. Follow him on Twitter at @rizzleJPizzle.

Comments

Comment by Fabien Pinckaers on July 25, 2014 at 2:40 pm

Hi,

What do you think about Odoo HR?

It’s the most used Open Source HR management software. Like apptivo, it’s a suite of Apps that you can activate on demand.

Great article! whithout a doubt ORANGEHRM is the best…BUT SENTRIFUGO can become even better….PLEASE include it !!!

both of these are very GOOD

Comment by JP Medved on January 2, 2015 at 9:59 am

MDC and Nenito, I had not heard of Sentrifugo before but it looks slick. How old is it?

Comment by nenito2k on January 2, 2015 at 12:46 pm

JP

SENTRIFUGO is extremely good…and has many options even expensive solutions don’t offer!! problem is it is quite complex and has TOO many things to fill…
anyway is is not that old i thing it came out in 2013…but has already had 6 big updates…
you can also write to the authors, they answer quickly…please update review one you test it…!

in my case i did use it however i returned to orange as it is much more simple…even if not as extensive…
the ideal software would be to mix these 2….

Comment by Dies Das on January 13, 2015 at 10:02 am

Just want to thank you for your review! And thanks for the comments. It ensures me in my own research to try orange HRM and will give SENTRIFUGO a shot, too.

Comment by subendu das on February 24, 2015 at 3:47 am

Well, Leave management and expense management is something which is closely tied together . Again there are very few open source HR systems which goes beyond the purview of just HR and also incorporates other areas like Recruiting , Expense Management and functional areas like Project Management /Sales into one single application window.

Collabrill a newly released application allows one to just do that without having to depend on multiple sources .

Currrently its available for free for a limited period for a limited no of sign ups. You can logon to http://www.collabrill.com to take advantage of this completely integrated solution.

Comment by Sat Sindhar on March 9, 2015 at 7:47 pm

Free HR software – you have to ask your question what the business model is and are you really doing justice to your people? , after all one of the big costs in organisations is employees, does it make sense to use tools that don’t have effective development teams in place, consultants and support staff — what type of message do you want to send to your employees ? After all Google Spreadsheet is free – you could just use that

Comment by Nats on March 10, 2015 at 1:04 am

I need to Online Employee Clock in and clock out software.
I need a free version.. Pls share the details

Comment by JP Medved on March 10, 2015 at 3:05 pm

Sat, I agree you want to get a quality system not just in terms of the software itself, but also the customer experience. That said, free systems can make a lot of sense to smaller companies, and open-source is a great option for bigger organizations that want a lot of customizability and have the tech resources to handle it.

Nats, there are quite a few free time-clock software options (may be a subject of a future post!). For now, have you considered Time Clock Wizard, TimeClockFree, or Open Time Clock?

Hi ! I was looking for something open-source that would be great at keeping database of potential employees (HR resource pool, so to say) with an ability to
– upload CV
– attach multiple competences (best if with level of professionalism, like “C++ skills: good; teamwork: bad”, etc) with the ability to sort and search against
– preferably also tags (like, “does not work part-time”, “likes burgers”, “really great guy”, etc) with the ability to search persons with a given tag\tags
– and of course all regular contact details (Skype, email, phone, socprofiles, etc)

Does anything come on mind ?

Comment by JP Medved on March 19, 2015 at 10:57 am

Hi Kirill, sounds like you may want something more like an applicant tracking system (ATS). I’ve put together a list of free and open source ATSs here:

great article…however we are still waiting for your test of SENTRIFUGO.
They just released a V 2.0 that brings many enhancements !!! the sofware is great; and they DO LISTEN to feeddack as i emailed them with suggestions!!!

Your blog is read by many people and this can encourage the SENTRIFUGO team to keep up their exceptional work!!!

Comment by JP Medved on June 8, 2015 at 12:31 pm

Hi Nats, just an update, we recently put out a top free and open source time clock software article:

do one of these tools give the possibility to import Data from excel files?

Thanks in advance for your support

Jeanne

Comment by Suwandi on June 29, 2015 at 10:16 am

I am one of the co-founders of sleekr. sleekr (http://sleekr.co) is a simple HR management SaaS for small and medium business. We help you handle time off management, company policy, self serviced staff data, payslips.

We are at Release 1.2 and is close to Release 1.3 where we will include Performance Management System for SME.

We have just launced in Feb 2015, and we are still offering forever free accounts until the Release. Feel free to test it out: http://sleekr.co

Comment by Arlind on July 10, 2015 at 1:26 am

Hi, thank you for the great article.
First I want to apologize for my bad english.. I’m writing from German-speaking Europe…

We are a painting service company and are looking for a HR software. In Fact we don’t really need a big HR software, we need a software which helps us to allocate our workers to the current projects, so that we can make the week planning. We have a lot of projects, small ones which take only a few hours and large ones which take many months. We want to be able to easily create our planning day by day without forgetting any of our 30 workers (which happens sometimes..)

Do you have any advices or recomondations?

Greetings from Vienna,
Arlind

Comment by JP Medved on July 10, 2015 at 10:38 am

Hi Jeanne, most, if not all, of these options allow you to import data from Excel or other spreadsheets.

Arlind,

It actually sounds like, based on your service business, you may need a field service management software system, instead of just an HR system.

I was wondering if anyone could recommend a service that could help with the following. Employee portal, Employee availability, IOS and android app, cloud based, ability to contact union members by messaging/email for announcements etc, document storage and a home page for the portal that could also provide information to non-union members about us as well as a login for employees. These are just general ideas to help run our local stagehand union especially for making labor calls based on availability. I have found one possible solution http://www.shiftnote.com/ and was just looking to see if anyone had any other direction they might be able to send me in…
Thanks in advance………….

Comment by JP Medved on July 15, 2015 at 2:27 pm

Hi Gregg,

FreeHR, mentioned above, may be a good fit as it has mobile apps and alerts. I don;t think any of these solutions are purpose-built for unions, but you should be able to find these features in most of them.

Comment by Amad on July 31, 2015 at 3:10 am

Thank you so much for adding this huge post for open source hr software

Comment by Daniel Nunis on August 1, 2015 at 5:32 am

Hi J.P.,
What an awesome comparison, you are truly a profesional in your expertise and knowledge. I was just looking for a simple HR software system to help out a friend who runs a SME with under 20 employees. He’s been tracking their Leave Management manually with input from his PA etc, and there’s loads of tranfering into Sharepoint etc. I’m not a HR person, nor do I know much about sytems and software, but could you tell me what’s the difference between the first few softwares mentioned and the Open Source…what is that…apologies for my ignorance. I’m learning something new everytime.
Blessings!
Dan

Comment by JP Medved on August 3, 2015 at 11:08 am

Hi Dan,

No worries. The “free/freemium” solutions are usually free but with some limitation (like # of users, or # of employees) above which you’ll need to upgrade to a paid version (like HRTrack), or free but ad-supported (like FreeHR).

Open source software means all the source code is available online for free, but that you need to implement/install the software yourself. Often open source software is not a good idea unless you know a fair bit of programming (or know someone who does).

It could be installed locally in customer infrastructure or hosted in a “cloud”.

It is quite flexible and allows you to:

* organise stuff into departments with line managers
* setup custom leave types with or without using employee allowance
* have company specific holidays as well as Bank holidays
* implement simple workflow of approve/reject request
* track peoples days off

The project is in early stages and there is a big opportunity to influence upcoming features.

Hope people find it useful.
Pavlo

Comment by JP Medved on August 10, 2015 at 12:22 pm

Hi Pavlo,

Looks like it may be a fit for an updated version of my free and open source time clock software list:

I have been using the OrangeHRM it’s perfect software we needed for our firm. Only one issue we are face is the Attendance Management, we have some employees working on site hence we are not able to Punch In or Out. just a piece of advice is that if the marking of the attendance could be made more easy to use, currently it’s like you have to mark the attendance for each employee one at a time.

Comment by tshegofatso monnantwa on August 13, 2015 at 5:08 am

i want a system that can record maintenance of the premises in my company

Comment by JP Medved on August 13, 2015 at 10:55 am

Hi Tshegofatso,

Sounds like you need a dedicated maintenance/building maintenance system, or even a facility management system. Here’s links to lists of each of those:

Looks like the article which you are posted are very helpful to open source technology for HR. We are using biometric security systems in accessing the log-in and log-out timings, attendance, etc for the employees at our organization. But the above softwares which you have mentioned looks very user friendly and very easy to use. Thanks for sharing and we are planning to implement one of the above software.

Comment by Suwandi on October 1, 2015 at 8:24 am

Hi, it’s me again. This is a great list. I would like to add Sleekr: The world’s easiest HR software. It’s free for up to 5 staffs. Sleekr also offer free trial for up to 2 months. And, only cost as low as 1$ per month per staff.

The real question about free HR software is security. How secure is your data can the vendors provide the sophisticated level of security required if the their model if freemium or if the package you are using is freemium does it reside on a less security environment.

At the end of the day when your employees ask you – are my details safe, are they secure, what are you going to say?

Comment by patrick karanja on November 22, 2015 at 12:58 pm

is there a particular software that integrates well with Biometric time attendance device like f18 and can compute pay based on time.

Comment by RRavi on November 28, 2015 at 12:02 pm

most of them offer limited features in free version, still orange hrms is some what better

Comment by JP Medved on December 8, 2015 at 4:23 pm

Hi Patrick,

I know WebHR has biometric integrations, and I imagine some of the larger open-source systems like OrangeHR or A1 will have modules to allow that as well though I couldn’t find them specifically mentioned.

Comment by JC Bougle on June 6, 2016 at 11:50 pm

Hi JP,
Thanks for the list. We created a platform for our own needs, which we have decided to make available for free to other companies: it is called zenintranet (www.zenintra.net). I would love for you and other readers to give it a try. It will remain free forever (to borrow from facebook’s tagline 😉

[…] track of those folks for future openings is creating a talent pool using HR software. There are a number of free/freemium online HR options for small businesses that are worth checking […]

Comment by Jane Jones on August 15, 2016 at 3:46 am

I tried Apptivo and FreeHR before but they were very limited (well what do you expect for free tools, right). These are great tools for stores, probably 2-4 employees but if the business expands, you will be needing more functions. Sometimes, having a tool is better than to hire a person to do that specific job you know. It’s a hassle especially when it comes to time keeping and payroll. My business is expanding and I’ve been using Ascentis’s Payroll and Timekeeping tools. The thing about premium tools is that they always have tech support that you can count on when technical challenges arise.

Comment by CFWH on September 22, 2016 at 2:35 am

I am looking for a flexible cloud based payroll system that I can customise for local taxes in a number of small Central Asian countries. As a minimum I need to be able to access and configure the tax rates and if i can design the reports to be acceptable for local statutory reports it would be a bonus. It needs to provide change reports, automatic payslips by email etc also. Thanks for any ideas. Chris

Comment by JP Medved on September 30, 2016 at 11:33 am

Hi Chris, HR.my is specifically focused on Malaysia, but I don’t think its tax rates are customizable beyond that. Zoho is based in India so might have that functionality. I know Zenefits does not, and their payroll system was only just released for California specifically.

You may have more luck with one of the open source tools like Odoo or Orange as far as customization, but then you may have to host/install them yourself.

Comment by Noor eid on October 3, 2016 at 9:38 am

Hi all,
I’m looking for Free HR software to handle and develop my small company with 7 employees,
I don’t have a strong background about HR management so i need an overall software
Can any one help ^^?

Comment by Mark T on October 28, 2016 at 6:23 am

Hey Noor, I highly recommend orange ( http://www.orangehrm.com ) as their hr software is very easy to use and comes with all the bells and whistles.

Comment by Pa on November 6, 2016 at 11:48 am

Hi all,

I am looking for a very simple, free (but possibly not web-based) tool capable of automatize the HR planning. Meaning that once it has the employees, their eventual absences and a given number of tasks, it must be able to create a planning. I know, that can be done with Excel, but I’m just looking for something nicer and a bit more dynamic. Any tips?

Thanks!

Comment by Pratima Sharma on November 29, 2016 at 12:43 am

is there any software for exit management (resigned employees).

Comment by Deborah Grant on November 29, 2016 at 5:29 pm

This is a great thread, I am sourcing a system (not too fancy) for a client new business with less than 20 employees, preferably that staff key in their own absence (on an app?) and input their own training. Key function covers: